How could Jesus be surprised?

Jesus was both GOD and Man. As the Holy of Holy one GOD. Holy Trinity he knew everything Past, present and Future.But he did not -Never ever use his divinity or the perks that go with it for his own self.Instead he put it aside to take our place so that in Him we may find our Salvation.Therefore this man from Nazareth born to a Virgin as a human endured every thing even death on the cross, pain, passion, sufferings, surprises included( though not many from the Biblical point of view) so that YOU and ME may have a place in the Kingdom of GOD

It is not difficult to understand if we consider the incarnation of Christ. His divine aspects were subconscious. He was truly a man without ceasing to be God in his identity. The kenotic idea suggests that Christ gave up certain divine attributes, but that is controversial and contradicts the unchangeable nature of God. Below is a quote from a ReasonableFaith podcast.

William James has referred to the subliminal self as that realm of the subconscious in the human personality. What I am suggesting is that the primary locus of these superhuman elements of Jesus’ life were in the subconsciousness of the divine Logos. This sort of a model, I think, provides a very satisfying account of Jesus as we see him in the Gospels. In his conscious experience, Jesus grew in wisdom and in knowledge, just as a human child does. On this model, we don’t have the monstrosity of the baby Jesus lying in the manger having the full conscious omniscience of the second person of the Trinity. In his conscious experience, Jesus grows and increases in knowledge as he grows older.

Moreover, this makes sense of the temptations of Jesus. In his conscious human experience, Jesus can be genuinely tempted, even though he is, in fact, incapable of sin. He can feel the allure of sin. He can feel the allure of the temptations. These temptations were really felt and couldn’t just be blown away like smoke. It required him to depend upon God. It required spiritual disciple and moral resoluteness on Jesus’ part, even though, in fact, he is incapable of sin because he is the second person of the Trinity.

This model makes sense of Jesus’ ignorance of certain facts. In his waking consciousness, Jesus was ignorant of various facts such as the date of his second coming, even though he was kept from error by the divine subliminal and occasionally would be informed by the divine subliminal about certain supernatural facts. We could imagine that certain aspects of the subconscious might sometimes come to consciousness in the same way that we are able to retrieve deep memories of events that perhaps have been forgotten long ago. So even though the Logos possesses all knowledge of everything from auto mechanics to quantum mechanics, there is no reason to think that Jesus could have responded to questions about auto mechanics or quantum mechanics if we had asked him. He had stooped so low in taking on the human condition that that knowledge was reserved to the divine subliminal and so not available in human consciousness.

Moreover, this makes sense of Jesus’ struggles and prayer life. In his conscious life, Jesus knew the whole gamut of human anxieties and worries. He felt physical hurt and pain and fatigue. The struggles in the Garden of Gethsemane were real and not just showpieces. This model preserves the integrity of Jesus’ prayer life and the sincerity of his prayer life. It explains why, even though Jesus was God, nevertheless he had to depend upon his heavenly Father by seeking him in prayer and seeking the face of God. It explains how Jesus could be perfected through suffering, even though he is the perfect second person of the Trinity in his divine nature. In his human nature, he learned moral virtue through what he suffered and so was capable of being perfected through suffering. Like us, sharing our human condition, he needed to be dependent moment by moment by moment upon his heavenly Father in order to carry out successfully the mission that God had given him. So the struggles, the anxieties, the wrestling with God in the Garden of Gethsemane are all real; they are genuine struggles of the incarnate Logos in his waking consciousness.

So I think all of the traditional objections against the Logos’ being the soul of Jesus’ human nature fall away before this understanding of the incarnation. For here we have a Christ who is not only divine but who also truly shares the human condition by having this theologically significant differentiation of consciousness and subconsciousness. I hope it doesn’t need to be said that this isn’t two persons, just as any ordinary person has a subconsciousness and a consciousness. So what we do is exploit those levels of human personhood by differentiating them in this theologically significant way.

Read more: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/defenders-2-podcast/transcript/s6-7

From Phillippians 2:5-7

Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself

The theological term for this is kenosis - emptying. Jesus undid his divinity while on earth, and thus chose to put himself in a place where he could be surprised.